1 5 8 AMERICAN FISHES. 



i8ro to i860. The testimony elicited from various observers, as well as 

 from printed records, indicates a decrease since that period much greater 

 in some localities than others. About New York they are said to have 

 been unusually plenty in the summer of 187 1, but farther east the diminu- 

 tion which had been observed in previous years appeared to continue. 



Diligent research by numerous inquirers during a period of sixteen years 

 has added little to what Prof. Baird has stated and it may be regarded 

 a? almost certain that Bluefish do not spawn in our inshore waters. The 

 only important contribution to our knowledge on this subject is found in 

 the notes of Mr. Silas Stearns, who believes that he has abundant evidence 

 of their spawning in the Gulf of Mexico. His remarks are quoted in full 

 below. The Hon. Robert B. Roosevelt records that he observed the Blue- 

 fish fry less than an inch in length in the inlet of Far Rockaway, N. Y., 

 on the loth of July : 



Little is known of their reproduction. Dr. Yarrow does not give any 

 facts in regard to this subject, at Fort Macon, except that spawn was seen 

 to run out of a small female caught July 14. Dr. Holbrook is also silent on 

 this head. Mr. Genio C. Scott says the spawning beds are visited by the 

 parent in June, and consists of quiet nooks or bays. Mr. R. B. Roose- 

 \-elt states that very diminutive young occur in immense numbers along 

 the coast at the end of September or beginning of October ("Game Fish 

 of America," 1862, -1859.) Prof. Baird found the young fish at Bees- 

 ley's Point, N. J., in July, 1S54, two or three inches in length, and 

 more compressed than the adult ; but farther east, on Yineyard Sound, 

 although diligent search was conducted, between the middle of June and 

 the ist of October, with most efficient apparatus in the way of fine-meshed 

 nets, I met with nothing excepting fish that made their appearance all at 

 once along the edge of the bay and harbor. 



According to Cai)t. Edwards, of Woods Holl, a very accurate obser- 

 ver, they have no spawn in them when in Vineyard Sound. This state- 

 ment is corroborated by Capt. Hinckley ; and Capt. Hallett, of Hyannis, 

 "does not know where they spawn." The only positive evidence on this 

 subject is that of Capt. Pease, who states it as the general impression about 

 Edgartown that they spawn about the last of July or the ist of August. 

 He has seen them when he thought they were sjjawning on the sand, hav- 

 ing caught them a short time before, full of spawn, and finding them after- 

 ward for a time thin and weak. He thinks their spawning ground is on 



